ACHILLES, a-kirez, one of the heroes of Greek mythology, and in particular the hero of Homer's Iliad. According to the latter he was the son of Peleus, king of the Myrmidons in Phthiotis, a district of Thessaly, and of the Nereid or sea-goddess Thetis, and the grandson of 2Eacus; hence often called Peleides and 2Eacides. He was educated from childhood by Phcenix, a friend of his father, who accom panied him to the Trojan war; and Cheiron the i Centaur instructed him in the art of healing. Achilles went to this war with the knowledge that he was to perish in it ; his mother having foretold him that he should either live a long and inglorious life, or die young after a glori ous career. He led his troops, the Myrmidons, against Troy in 50 ships. During the first nine years of the war we have no minute detail of his actions; in the tenth a quarrel broke out be tween him and the general-in-chief, Agamem non, which led him to withdraw entirely from the contest. In consequence the Trojans, who before scarcely ventured without their walls, now waged battle in the plain with various issue, till they reduced the Greeks to extreme distress. The Greek council of war sent its most influential members to soothe Achilles' anger, and induce him to return to arms, but without effect. Rage and grief caused by the death of his friend Patroclus, slain by Hector, induced Achilles to return to battle. Thetis procured from Hephmstus (Vulcan) a fresh suit of armor for her son, who at the close of a day of slaughter killed Hector and dragged him at his chariot wheels to the camp, but afterward gave the body to Priam, who came in person for it. Achilles then performed the funeral rites of Patroclus, with which the Iliad closes. It contains, however, several anticipative allu sions to the death of Achilles, which is also mentioned in the Odyssey. He was killed in a battle at the Scan Gate.
Here ends the history of Achilles so far as it is derived from Homer. By later authors a variety of fable is mixed up with it; some per haps old legend, much certainly outright in vention. To make him immortal, his mother during his infancy concealed him by, night in fire, to destroy the mortal parts inherited from his father, and anointed him by day with am brosia (the story of Demeter and DetnophoOn). His father discovering him one night in the fire, Thetis fled; and his father entrusted him to the care of Cheiron, who fed him, with the hearts of lions and the marrow of bears, and gave him the education proper to a hero. Ac
cording to another story Thetis made him in vulnerable by dipping him in the Styx, but the heel by which she held him was untouched by the water; accordingly he received his fatal wound in the heel. The story of Siegfried is patterned on this. To prevent his going to Troy, where it was predicted he should perish, Thetis sent him, disguised as a girl, to the court of Lycomedes of Scyros. He was educated with Lycomedes' daughters, one of whom, Deida meia, became the mother of Pyrrhus or Neop tolemus by him. Odysseus (Ulysses) went to the court of Lycomedes to discover him and induce him to join the war, in which Calchas had declared his aid indispensable. He suc ceeded by a stratagem. Presenting himself as a merchant, he offered the daughters of Lyco medes female ornaments and articles of attire for sale, among which he laid a shield and spear. He then raised an alarm of danger, on which the girls fled, and Achilles seized the weapons. He is said to have been killed either by Apollo in the likeness of Paris, or by an arrow of Paris directed by Apollo. According to another account he made love to Polyxena, a daughter of Priam; and, induced by the prom ise of her hand on condition of his joining the Trojans, went unarmed to the temple of Apollo at Thymbra, and was there assassinated by Paris. Various stories are told of the relations of Achilles with Iphigenia (q.v.), who was brought to the camp at Aulis on pretext of being married to Achilles. In one account Achilles interferes to rescue her from being sacrificed, and sends her to Scythia; in another he marries her, and she becomes the mother of Pyrrhus. Others say he was united to her in the lower world, where he became a judge; others again say he married Medea in Elysium. Annual sacrifices were offered to Achilles by the Thessalians at Troas by command of the oracle of Dodona; at Olympia and other places in Greece sacred honors were likewise paid to him. This has led to the unsafe inference that he was originally an Achaian hod ; but remem bering the of uncivilized races to deify superior geniuses among them, and such cases as that of Roland, it is much more likely that he was a chief before he was a god. It is probable that a real Thessalian warrior existed who has been thus idealized, though we do not know his name or real deeds. See Holm; TROJAN WAR.